So Close
by CokeBottleK
Summary: "James looked at her and she felt like her skin had suddenly caught fire. 'It's got one hundred percent, absolutely nothing to do with your essay.'": Featuring professor!James, student!Lily, and both parties' abandonment of better judgment. L/J. One-shot, AU smut edition.


**DISCLAIMER: If you recognize it, it's JKR's; without her, I wouldn't be able to sully the world of **_**Harry Potter **_**with all this unapologetic sexy. Cover art by viria13.**

_This is just porn, you guys. Like it's AU Jily, Katie-did-not-even-TRY-for-further-plot, straight-up porn, because fuck a coherent storyline, I just wanted to write professor!James/student!Lily sexy rumpus. You have been warned. That being said… Mom, if you're reading this, get out._

_Dedicated to Bree (FFnet's _jamespotterthefirst_, Tumblr's _benjyfenwick_), because we were writing Jily smut at the same time, GO TEAM!_

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**So Close**

**I. The First Time**

* * *

"This is not an 'A.'"

James Potter looked up from the papers he'd been gathering as another piece of parchment was slammed against his desk – a piece of parchment decorated with thin, spindly, tilted-slightly-to-the-left writing that was interspersed with his own chicken-scratched comments, and adorned with a red-inked _A_ in the right-hand corner.

He tapped the letter pointedly. "Actually, Miss Evans, I think you'll find that that _is_, indeed, an 'A.'"

Lily scowled. "That's _not_ what I meant."

"Oh. Well, then, by all means, do elaborate." James tried not to smirk but he couldn't help but tease her. Lily Evans was as laid-back as you could get, but she certainly didn't go down without a fight. He admired that about her; he _liked_ it about her, among – and he couldn't help allowing his gaze to sweep quickly (and hopefully inconspicuously) over her – other things.

Sirius would call him mad. Actually, that's exactly what Sirius had called him two weeks again, when they'd gone out and gotten completely smashed and James had confessed a few of the things he _liked_ about Hogwarts' resident Head Girl, like her laugh and her legs and her name and her damn near everything. It hadn't been his proudest drunken moment, but it had felt good to get it off his chest, at any rate. He only wished that Sirius wasn't so right, but even without his astute observation about how mad James was, James knew well enough that all those things he _liked_ about Lily Evans would only spell trouble for him.

"This is not an 'A' essay, is what I meant," Lily was saying as James shook his thoughts and focused on her (not that that _helped_, mind). "Do you know how long I spent on this essay? _Weeks._ Long, torturous weeks. Weeks of skipped meals and Madam Pince breathing down my neck and all-nighters in the Restricted Section –"

"Doesn't the library close at eight?"

Lily waved a dismissive hand, as if she were annoyed with him for interrupting her for something as inconsequential as a little breaking-and-entering. "I got tired of the neck-breathing, all right?"

"Pince puts some heavy magical reinforcements on those doors," James said, impressed in spite of the professorial responsibility that probably would have required him to punish Lily with a detention or two. "How'd you get back in?"

"_Magical_ reinforcements, not Muggle ones. Lock-picking," Lily said, and pulled a pin from behind her ear so that her hair fell loose and curling over one shoulder. "It's not that hard."

"Right, fascinating," James said, distracted again as he watched Lily sweep her hair back. _Pull yourself together, man. _He shook his head to clear it and didn't notice Lily noticing. "Anyway, back to your essay, Miss Evans…"

Lily listened as the professor walked her through her topical points and his responses to them. Tried to listen, anyway, but truth be told, she had a hard time concentrating on much of anything as she watched his hands, his fingers, as they moved over her handwriting. She really only tuned into his occasional "Miss Evans" because, god, did she love the way he said that.

Her friends told her she was mad, fancying a professor the way she did. Marlene said sure, Potter was good-looking, if you were into that cocky intellectual thing (Lily was – oh dear Merlin, was she ever). And it wasn't as if, at five years their senior, Potter was too old for any of them, but all the same Marlene was convinced that Lily's sexual fantasies couldn't reap more than the poor girl's own frustration, and Marlene told her so.

For the most part, Lily was forced to agree. After all, she'd spent _how_ many nights getting herself off to the mere idea of Professor James Potter, and look where it got her: Nowhere. Painfully, achingly, _frustratingly_ nowhere. Unless you counted the way her mental faculties short-circuited when he was around as "getting somewhere," but Lily didn't, so she was back to "nowhere."

"So you see, Evans," James was summarizing as Lily snapped herself back to the present, "as long and torturous as your weeks may have been, it's just not enough. I know you can do better."

Lily frowned. Sexual fantasies aside, she could keep her wits about her when this stupid bloke – professor or no, that's still what James Potter's character came down to – said something as nonsensical as _I know you can do better_. She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. _Please._

"So, what, my marks aren't dependent upon my effort so much as your personal expectations of me?" she demanded. Indignation sparked in her stomach and unfurled to course through her body (better indignation than repressed hormonal urges, she supposed). "That's ridiculous."

"No," James said in an attempt at patience that was wholly inhibited by how badly he wanted her and his consequent inability to think straight, "what's ridiculous is – is –" He struggled with what to say and came up with nothing appropriate.

"Is what?" Lily prompted for the sheer satisfaction of egging him on when he clearly had no idea what he was talking about. "_What's _ridiculous, Professor? Go on, tell me, otherwise you might as well up my mark because I am _not_ leaving here with nothing to show for it."

James tried not to grit his teeth. Damn, she was frustrating in about a thousand different ways, wasn't she? Her attitude, the way she cocked her hip and blinked so faux-innocently at him, and how she'd been dating that Aubrey bloke and James had to restrain himself from failing that stupid blighter for two months because he was insanely, inappropriately jealous, the way she folded her arms across her chest and _why_ was her blouse unbuttoned like that, so he could just make out the contours below that absolutely delicious collarbone, god _damn_ it, and the way she seemed to know everything except what was going on in his head when he looked at her and he was _always looking at her_, shit, and the way her gaze lingered and that slow little grin that would tug at her mouth and – oh, sod it all.

"Evans," he said, about to throw it all on the table because he couldn't take it anymore and he _saw_ the way she was looking at him, too, he wasn't blind, "how old are you?"

Taken aback but recovering quickly, Lily said, "Seventeen."

James nodded as if convincing himself of something. He ran a hand through his hair (_mmmm_, Lily thought, despite the better judgment that had long ago abandoned her, anyway). "Seventeen. Right. Okay."

"That's right," Lily confirmed. And even though she suspected she knew the answer to her next question, she asked it, anyway: "What's that got to do with my essay?"

"Nothing." James looked at her and she felt like her skin had suddenly caught fire. "It's got one hundred percent, absolutely _nothing_ to do with your essay."

Lily swallowed. "Right, then."

James released a short breath. "Yeah."

"So…" Lily drew out the word, trying to keep the conversation going so she could figure out where, exactly, it was going at all. She had a thought, but perhaps that was just her overactive imagination, her ill-restrained hormones and their stupid, incessant, purely sexually-repressed-schoolgirl hope. "I don't… ah, maybe I should just…"

She trailed off and reached for her essay, but James caught her wrist before she could snatch the parchment up and run out of there. Because unless she told him otherwise, James had every intention of keeping her in his office, and he wasn't going to let something like a simple miscommunication stand in his way.

"Maybe you shouldn't," he said, his tone almost conversational, although his dilated pupils betrayed his otherwise collected façade. His fingertips slid back and forth across the inside of Lily's wrist, dancing along with the erratic pulse beneath her skin.

"That's another idea," Lily managed past the huskiness that had all but taken over her voice. Stupid, incessant, purely sexually-repressed-schoolgirl hope notwithstanding, she knew where this was going… right? "But just so we're clear –"

"I want to fuck you, Evans," James filled in her unfinished blank. He already had his cards on the table; might as well cash in. _Go big or go home_, that's what Sirius would tell him. "And unless you have any objection, I'm going to do just that."

"Well, there is still the matter of my essay…" Lily wasn't sure if she was nervous or just teasing him. Perhaps both. Hell if she knew for sure – she'd never shagged one of her professors before.

"Right, that." James's caressing hand left her wrist to tuck a loose strand of crimson hair behind her ear. His fingers traced the lobe and the slope of her neck, his eyes following the motion like he couldn't believe he was actually touching her (which he couldn't, not really, not since it was simultaneously completely mad and everything he wanted). "Listen, Evans, as much as I care about your marks – and believe me, I really do – you yourself sort of take precedence at the moment."

"Hmmm." Lily sighed, closed her eyes as James's hand continued its ministrations down the length of her body. Gently, slowly, thoroughly, he cut a path down her arm, along her waist and across her stomach to the top of her skirt, where his thumb rubbed circles just above the snap and she could feel his chest hitch against hers as he attempted to keep his breathing steady. His other hand crept up her thigh and this time her sigh bordered on a moan.

James grinned. "What was that, Miss Evans?" he asked, his voice losing its cool as he took half a step closer, nudging her toes with his. He rubbed his thumb a little more insistently against her lower abdomen and longed for skin-on-skin contact. "Have you got something to share with the class?"

Her eyes snapped open and the corners crinkled with that slow steady grin that drove James crazy. "Actually…" Lily's fingers began popping the buttons off her blouse. "I really just wanted to share it with you."

"See, I told you that you could do better," James said in that proud professor voice he reserved for those students who exceeded his expectations (Lily's knees buckled a bit). His hand moved away from her stomach to clutch her hip, and his head dipped down to ravish her neck.

This was, he knew as his tongue got a taste of her – soft and sweet and sugary – the worst thing he could be doing. It was stupid and reckless and over-the-line. But then he felt her hands between them, unfastening the last of her uniform shirt's buttons, and he couldn't bring himself to give a shit about the rest of it.

"Oh, Lily…" He moaned, short and sharp, against her neck. His hands spanned over her naked stomach, reveling in her softness, the heat radiating from her skin. His fingernails bit into her ribcage.

"This is a bad idea, isn't it?" But, god, his stubble was scratching her throat and she hardly cared.

"Yes." One of James's hands left her stomach to twist into her hair, and the other undid the snap of her skirt and slipped inside. He kissed his way up her neck to her jaw. "Yes, it's a fantastically bad idea, but I" – his fingers rubbed insistently against the front of her knickers and she moaned and gripped the slope of his neck – "don't care. I don't care."

Short of breath as she was, Lily managed a "God, neither do I," and then she pulled his mouth down to hers.

He tasted like she imagined he would, all those afternoons in class and nights in her four-poster – he tasted like pipe smoke and chocolate, and it was like she was addicted to nicotine, she had a craving, the way she couldn't get enough of him. She bit his lip and opened her mouth under the nudging insistence of his tongue. His hand was still working at her knickers and she'd grown impatient with his teasing.

"Inside," she murmured against his mouth, and for a moment James was too dazed – dazed with her taste, the way her lips felt against his, how wrong all of this was but he'd meant it when he said he didn't care – but then her words struck him and he thought he might pass out.

"Bossy thing, aren't you?" He grinned in an attempt to stay focused and his hand dipped inside like she'd instructed, and then two fingers twitched inside of her and their groans were instant, simultaneous. "God _damn_ it, Evans…"

His mouth devoured hers again, his tongue tasting every crevice and corner it could reach and hers responding in kind. He felt her hands tug at his trousers and his fingers quickened their pace, their urgency, as hers wrapped around him and he groaned again, into her mouth this time, and he wanted more than his hand inside of her now. He'd thought about it enough, and now that he was living instead of fantasizing, he just wanted to push her hard against his desk and _take_ her. He wanted to feel her legs around his waist, wanted to feel her hips rock against his quickly, harshly. He wanted to watch her eyes shut tight, wanted to see her lips part, the corners twitch up in ecstasy – he wanted to see whatever she looked like while he made her come.

"James." Lily moaned his name and the sound of it – the _first_ sound of it, but he'd be damned if he didn't make her scream it again – drove him closer to the edge. Her hand left him to rip open his shirt, and his left her to tear her skirt in half. Lily grabbed his momentarily unoccupied hands and pressed them to her chest, where they squeezed and massaged almost of their own accord.

"_Fuck,"_ James grunted, and he ripped off her bra. He bit her neck, and moved down to suck her collarbone as he shrugged his shirt the rest of the way off. "Merlin, you're sexy. Can't tell you how many times I've thought about you like this, thought about getting you alone and fucking you on my desk –"

"I get off to you," Lily told him and, as if to prove her point, her hand disappeared between them and she started rubbing herself (_fuck_, James thought again). Her free hand tangled into his hair and she leaned in to run her tongue alongside his neck; she felt him shudder beneath her touch. "I think about you touching me, licking me, fucking me, _Professor_ –"

James slammed her against his desk, pushed her up until she was sitting atop it. She wrapped her legs around his hips and pulled him closer, so close that they could both feel him against her.

"Lily," he said, and tried to keep his head together as his hands pushed through her hair, slid over her shoulders and down, down, down, until they grasped her thighs. Her long, smooth thighs that were parted for him. "Are you a virgin?"

She nodded and James closed his eyes, buried his face in her neck and started kissing her again. Whether she'd nodded or shaken her head, it didn't matter to him, but there was something thrilling in the fact that it was just him, that she'd never wanted anyone else enough.

"Do you still want me?" Lily asked, just loud enough for him to hear, her breath short and heavy with anticipation.

"Yes." James's lips dragged across her skin and then hovered above her mouth. They'd come this far and he was so detached from caring about appropriateness and responsibility and the rest of it. She was naked on his desk, waiting for him, and he was so tired of watching her in class and not knowing what it felt like to have her. "Fuck yes, I want you."

His hands slid from her thighs as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer to him. He felt her legs tighten and her hands ball into fists against his chest. He kissed behind her ear and whispered into it, "I'm not going to hurt you." He entered her, slowly, and her sharp intake of breath echoed in his mind. "Just keep telling me what you want."

Lily nodded, a little stiffly as she adjusted to the pain. She felt James's mouth pluck at her skin as he left long, almost lazy kisses up and down her neck; his hands moved across her back and his hips moved gently into hers as he held back on his mad desire to take her hard and fast. Her hips met his, tentatively at first, but the pain was ebbing, replaced by a drunkenly good kind of pressure that saturated her senses and demanded more, more, _more_.

"Faster," she said. "I want you to go harder."

She felt his moan reverberate against her neck, shaking her down to her bones. He complied, picked up the pace, dug his nails into her hips and moved her with him. His mouth returned to hers and between short, semi-sloppy kisses, told her in heavy undertones: "You are. So. Bloody. Beautiful."

Their breaths – shallow and ragged – mingled together. Her fingertips traced the lines of muscle on his chest, and his massaged up and down the lines that made up the apex of her thighs. He moved faster and she kept up. The desk rattled against the stone floor. Her grip on him tightened and his did likewise. An ink pot was upended and crashed at James's feet, splashing into a puddle of broken glass and sticky blackness. He kissed her, she kissed him back.

"_James,"_ she said again, and this time he caught his name in his own mouth.

He went harder, shaking the desk. He heard his name, louder this time, a little more breathlessly.

"_Lily."_ He slammed into her, harder, and over and over and over again. He gripped her thighs and yanked her closer, so that their bodies melded together, so that she could feel his skin against hers, so she could soak up his heat and know that _she_ was the one that did that to him, that she was all that was ever on his mind. "God, you drive me mad."

"Oh, James…" She kept saying his name. "Fuck, oh my god, _James_…"

"Come on, love." He slammed, pounded, almost kept pace with the wild beating, skittering of his heart. "Almost there. I want to hear you screaming."

She did, a moment later, and he groaned out her name against her mouth, so that they each swallowed the other's final vestiges of ecstasy.

Lily went a little bit limp, her body relaxed and spent; James slumped against her, his face cushioned by the curve of her shoulder, which was littered with bite marks and bruises. He felt another surge of satisfaction at the sight of them, although he supposed she'd want to Vanish them for propriety's sake. That was all right. Every time he looked at her, he'd see them, anyway. No one else had to know.

James kissed her temple and managed to pull himself away. "We're late for dinner."

"Seems like it," Lily agreed after a glance at her watch – the only thing she had kept on. She slid off the desk and landed on James's feet. "Sorry. I've got to go. Marlene gets testy when she hasn't eaten. So do I, come to think of it…"

"Hang on." James rubbed her arms, his eyes scanning the curve of her cheekbones, her neck, her shoulders. _Gorgeous._ And he'd touched every inch. "Are you – do you feel all right?"

Lily gave him a quizzical look. "Fine, yeah. Or brilliant. _Fantastic_ works, too."

"Good." James smiled, nodded, his mind working quickly so he'd be sure to put this the right way, and soon, before she insisted she had to go and _then_ where would that leave him? Alone, in his empty office, to over-think the pros and cons and worry that he'd really screwed up when he couldn't afford it. He couldn't _not_ touch her again. "Listen, I'll let you get going, but I think that perhaps… We should talk."

"About?"

"Us."

"Oh." Lily's eyes widened. _Is this really happening?_ asked the neurotic little schoolgirl voice in the back of her head, hardly daring to believe it, but the erratic skip of her heart, the look on James's face, was enough to confirm that, yes, it really was.

James, for his part, was just as surprised at his own words, but they felt oddly right, too. "Tonight, preferably. Would that be all right, then?"

"Yeah." Lily nodded, unsure of what else to do. Her mind was in a million places, all of which led to James, but crisscrossed so much on the way there that she barely knew which way was up. "Yes, I mean, that's – uhm – what _about_ us, exactly?"

"Well…" James brushed the hair back from her shoulders and his fingers lingered over her skin. "As messy as this has the potential to be, you're done with school in a couple of months, and... You're not a one-off to me. I" – what was the proper word here? James wondered – "care about you. I'm not interested in pretending otherwise."

Lily's face cracked into a grin – not that slow steady smirk that made his pulse do chaotic things, but a big, no-holding-back smile that James found he liked just as much.

"Okay," she said. "Yeah. I'll come back after dinner. Eight o'clock."

Once Lily was wearing more than just a wristwatch and James's marks had been successfully Vanished from her neck (as if she'd even want to _try_ explaining those to her friends), she gathered her schoolthings and scowled once more at the essay that had started this whole thing. "Still can't believe you gave me an 'A.'"

James grinned, finished buttoning his shirt, and twisted his fingers into the ends of Lily's hair. He pressed his lips to her forehead and sank into her, just for one more moment that would have to tide him over for the next few hours. "I'll make it up to you later" was his cheeky promise, to which Lily snorted and replied, "Yeah, right."

"I mean it," James said as she disentangled herself from him and headed for the door. "I swear, Miss Evans, esteemed student of mine, you'll forget all about that essay's well-deserved 'Acceptable.'"

Lily stopped, looked over her shoulder, like she wanted to say something witty and cutting and so very her. James waited for it, prepared to get her riled up again so that maybe she'd stay and he could take her against the wall next, but he didn't get the chance. Instead:

"You know…" Lily paused, shook her head, and there was that smirk again as she met his eye with hers. "You're ever the surprise, Professor."

And even though she made the blood rush wildly to his brain, clouding and wrecking it in the most fantastic way, James managed to keep his cool enough to wink at her. "I love it when you talk academic to me," he said.

She laughed, and he loved her for that. Maybe – _definitely_ – he was just as mad as Sirius had accused him of being. But as Lily stepped into the corridor and shut the door, leaving behind nothing but the echo of her laughter and the promise of later that night, James still managed not to care.

He cleaned up the spilled inkpot and waited for eight o'clock.


End file.
